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Tesla Motors’ Residential Battery Pack, Lean on Details

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10 years ago

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Tesla Nevada Gigafactory

Energy storage and Tesla Motors’ residential battery pack has been trending over the last couple of days since it was announced last week during the company’s conference call. In typical Musk fashion, the conference call reference was lean on details and provides the carrot for financial analysts to overlook it’s miss on revenue and earnings.

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Tesla battery technology integrated into SolarCity residential solar system. (Image credit: Solar City)

The assumption is this battery pack production will be able to store energy from your solar panels and electric vehicle owners will be able to use that electricity to directly charge their cars.

This is an interesting play from Musk and direction for Tesla Motors due to the fact that residential battery storage doesn’t exist at this point—some pilots have been underway in California via Tesla. Some critics are saying Tesla may be getting sidetracked and would benefit from a more pragmatic CEO (think they said the same thing about Steve Jobs in early 80s).

They have a point. I write for a manufacturing software magazine, called Automation World, and this audience seems to be ideal market for battery storage, if the return on investment is right. However, while researching an upcoming feature article on energy management for manufacturers, plant floor production is just starting to focus on managing energy for bottom-line savings. Battery storage isn’t in the picture, yet—though commercial buildings might be easier to implement than manufacturers at the beginning.

So is Musk’s aim correct? Is residential battery storage ready?

"We’re going to unveil some of the Tesla home battery consumer battery that will be for you using and people’s houses or businesses, fairly soon. We have the design done and it should start going into production probably about six months or so.”

So not much at this point and Musk once had hoped to leverage "used battery packs" as part of a greener energy storage solution for businesses or homes.

However, Tesla’s director of powertrain business development, Mateo Jaramillo, on the same podcast, says,“So will a used EV battery in seven or eight years be cheaper, more cost-effective to integrate into whatever application you’re trying to get into than a brand new battery in that year, says Jarmamillo. “Right now, the answer doesn’t look like to be yes.”

RELATED: [Podcast] Tesla’s Battery Storage Strategy

BMW is also starting a battery storage pilot program in California with Pacific, Gas and Electric, which we announced last month —Tesla and BMW Battery Packs to the Rescue?). Tesla has also said they are in talks with utilities and they are not enemies in this market play.

So there’s something here and it seems like Musk is porting over his Model S plan: create a market, create buzz and hope supporting market mechanisms will sprout up.

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Jigar Shah makes a good point that utilities need to have real-time analytics and a communication infrastructure to provide energy pricing signals quickly to customers. Shah sees this support needed to help residential storage to make money and even “pool” their energy with other battery systems and sell it back to the grid.

Just like last year with the gigafactory, Tesla has teased a product with to the clean energy and business crowd. The wait won't be as long as the gigafactory in 2014, Musk said via the conference call last week that "a product unveiling is probably in the next month or two.”

We're ready PT Barnum/Nikola Tesla.

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"Grant Gerke wears his Model S on his sleeve and has been writing about Tesla for the last five years on numerous media sites. He has a bias towards plug-in vehicles and also writes about manufacturing software for Automation World magazine in Chicago. Find him at Teslarati

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Elon Musk

Canaccord reaffirms Tesla’s price target of $404 after Giga Texas visit

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16 hours ago

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March 25, 2025

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Credit: Tesla Asia/X

Canaccord Genuity reaffirmed its price target of $404 for Tesla after a visit to Gigafactory Texas. The investment firm sees an optimistic future for Tesla in the long term despite near-term headwinds.

Canaccord analysts reiterated its “Buy” rating for TSLA stock and revised Tesla’s Q1 2025 delivery estimates from ~331,000 vehicles to ~362,000 units. The firm’s first-quarter delivery estimates for Tesla reveal its optimistic take on the company’s future, even though it is still below the consensus estimate of ~417,000 vehicles.

“Our estimate is informed by our opinion that some consumers are delaying vehicle purchases to access the new Model Y and 4Q24 earnings call commentary regarding Model Y-related factory retooling limiting production…We wonder whether purchase decision delays and production limitations are being misinterpreted as halted overall momentum for Tesla. While we do suspect there has been some macroeconomic/brand impact, we, again, do estimate 1Q25 deliveries are mostly being impacted by supply constraints–as well as some demand factors,” Canaccord Genuity noted.

Canaccord analysts recently visited Tesla Giga Texas and left with optimism for the American electric vehicle (EV) maker.

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“It’s hard not to be impressed with how future-forward Tesla is–whether it’s vehicle design or manufacturing. Consistently rethinking the status quo,” Canaccord Genuity analysts commented.

Tesla to explore the limits of casting with Cybercab line

Analysts highlighted Tesla’s progress with Full Self-Driving, specifically version 13.2.8. They noted that Tesla’s unboxed manufacturing strategy would boost production efficiencies. Canaccord Genuity analysts also mentioned that Tesla’s robotaxi services will launch in Austin in the summer.

“For investors with duration and grit, there is a silver-linings playbook,” the Canaccord Genuity analysts concluded.

Canaccord Genuity reflects Elon Musk’s recent stock market advice during the Tesla All-Hands keynote. Musk advised investors to invest in companies with products they love, highlighting that Tesla has a few great products and will continue to launch more.

“Tesla stock goes up and goes down, but actually, it’s still the same company,” Musk noted.

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Tesla stock rebounds and Tim Walz backtracks: ‘I was making a joke’

Published

1 day ago

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March 24, 2025

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Credit: @TeslaFrenzy/X

Tesla stock rebounded over 20 percent in the past five trading days, and, coincidentally, the boost came just after Tim Walz said he gets a boost from watching the automaker’s shares fall.

Although Walz’s pushback against Tesla stock mostly comes from his evident distaste for CEO Elon Musk, who has joined President Donald Trump’s team as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), it seems he might not have realized the EV maker’s shares make up a portion of his state’s pension fund.

This was something Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary mentioned last week after Walz’s comments. However, now that Tesla shares are rising once again, Walz is backtracking by saying that his comment from last week was his attempt at humor.

Walz said:

“I have to be careful about being a smartass. I was making a joke. These people have no sense of humor.”

Tesla shares have rebounded nicely since a substantial drop so far this year.

Although the stock is still down about 28 percent this year, things are looking better for the company as it now shifts its focus to the release of several affordable models, the ramp of the new Model Y “Juniper,” the release of the Cybercab and Robotaxi platform in Texas and California, and other potential catalysts like the Optimus robot.

Tesla aiming to produce first “legion” of Optimus robots this 2025

Last week’s All-Hands meeting from Tesla was publicly broadcast on X and seemed to be the response many investors were hoping for as questions started to seep in regarding Musk’s commitment to the company.

While his attention seems to be on solving government spending and eliminating corruption, it is evident Musk is still paying attention to what is going on at Tesla.

Shares are up over 10 percent at 1:05 p.m. on the East Coast, trading at around $274.

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Shark Tank’s O’Leary roasts Tim Walz over Tesla stock hate session

Published

5 days ago

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March 21, 2025

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Shark Tank personality and legendary investor Kevin O’Leary roasted former Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz over his comments regarding Tesla shares earlier this week.

Walz, a Minnesota Democrat, said that he recently added Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) to his Apple Stocks app so he could watch shares fall as they have encountered plenty of resistance in 2025 so far. He said that anytime he needs a boost, he looks at Tesla shares, which are down 36 percent so far this year:

Walz, among many others, has been critical of Tesla and Elon Musk, especially as the CEO has helped eliminate excess government spending through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

However, Kevin O’Leary, a legendary investor, showed up on CNN after Walz’s comments to give him a bit of a reality check. O’Leary essentially called Walz out of touch for what he said about Tesla shares, especially considering Tesla made up a good portion of the Minnesota Retirement Fund.

As of June 2024, the pension fund held 1.6 million shares of Tesla stock worth over $319.6 million:

O’Leary continued to slam Walz for his comments:

“That poor guy didn’t check his portfolio and his own pension plan for the state. It’s beyond stupid what he did. What’s the matter with that guy? He doesn’t check the well-being of his own constituents.”

He even called Walz “a bozo” for what he said.

Of course, Walz’s comments are expected considering Musk’s support for the Trump Administration, as the Tesla CEO was a major contributor to the 45th President’s campaign for his second term.

However, it seems extremely out of touch that Walz made these comments without realizing the drop was potentially hurting his fund. While we don’t know if the fund has sold its entire Tesla holdings since June, as a newer, more recent report has not been released yet, it seems unlikely the automaker’s shares are not still making up some portion of the fund.

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